The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks Staff Statement No. 3 Members of the Commission, your staff has developed initial findings on how the individuals who carried out the 9/11 attacks defeated the civil aviation security system of the United States. We continue our investigation into the status of civil aviation security today and for the future. These findings and judgments may help your conduct of today’s public hearing and will inform the development of your recommendations. The findings and judgments we report today are the results of our work so far. We remain ready to revise our understanding of these topics as our work continues. This staff statement represents the collective effort of the Aviation and Transportation Security Team. Our staff was able to build upon investigative work that has been conducted by various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration is fully cooperating with our investigators, as are the relevant airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration. Before September 11, 2001, the aviation security system had been enjoying a period of relative peace. No U.S. flagged aircraft had been bombed or hijacked in over a decade. Domestic hijacking in particular seemed like a thing of the past, something that could only happen to foreign airlines that were less well protected. The public’s own “threat assessment” before September 11 was sanguine about commercial aviation safety and security. In a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey conducted at the end of the 1990s, 78 percent cited poor maintenance as “a greater threat to airline safety” than terrorism. Demand for air service was strong and was beginning to exceed the capacity of the system. Heeding constituent calls for improved air service and increased capacity, Congress focused its legislative and oversight attention on measures to address these problems, including a “passenger bill of rights” to assure a more efficient and convenient passenger experience. The leadership of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also focused on safety, customer service, capacity and economic issues. The agency’s security agenda was focused on efforts to implement a three-year-old Congressional mandate to deploy explosives detection equipment at all major airports and complete a nearly five-year-old rulemaking effort to improve checkpoint screening. This staff statement will not address certain security performance issues leading up to 9/11 at the airports from which the hijacked planes departed. Such work is still ongoing. It should be noted that the airports themselves did not have operational or enforcement jurisdiction over checkpoint screening operations. Passenger prescreening and checkpoint screening, based on regulations from the FAA, were the responsibility of the air carriers. Nevertheless, airport authorities do play a key role in the overall civil aviation security system. Civil Aviation Security Defenses Before September 11, federal law required the FAA to set and enforce aviation security policies and regulations that would “protect passengers and property on an aircraft operating in air transportation or intra-state air transportation against an act of criminal violence or aircraft piracy.” The layered system, one that recognized that no single security measure was flawless or impenetrable, was designed to provide a greater number of opportunities to foil those intending to do such violence. The Civil Aviation Security system in place on September 11 was composed of seven layers of defense including: · intelligence; · passenger prescreening; · airport access control; · passenger checkpoint screening; · passenger checked baggage screening; · cargo screening; and · on-board security. The civil aviation security system in place on September 11 no longer exists. We will document serious shortcomings in that system’s design and implementation that made the 9/11 hijackings possible. We want to make clear that our findings of specific vulnerabilities and shortcomings do not necessarily apply to the current system. Two of the layers of defense—checked baggage screening and cargo security—are not relevant to the 9/11 plot. They are not addressed in this statement. A third layer, airport access control, is still under investigation and also will not be addressed in detail. Compelling evidence, including videotape of hijackers entering through checkpoint screening stations, suggests that the hijackers gained access to the aircraft on September 11 through passenger checkpoints. What we do know is that the hijackers successfully evaded or defeated the remaining four layers of the security system. The Enemy View We approach the question of how the aviation security system failed on September 11 by starting from the perspective of the enemy, asking, “What did al Qaeda have to do to complete its mission?” Staff Statement No. 3 2 Some time during the late 1990s, the al Qaeda leadership made the decision to hijack large, commercial, multi-engine aircraft and use them as a devastating weapon as opposed to hijacking a commercial aircraft for use as a bargaining tool. To carry out that decision would require unique skill sets: · terrorists trained as pilots with the specialized skill and confidence to successfully fly large, multi-engine aircraft, already airborne, into selected targets; · tactics, techniques, and procedures to successfully conduct in-flight hijackings; and · operatives willing to die. To our knowledge, 9/11 was the first time in history that terrorists actually piloted a commercial jetliner in a terrorist operation. This was new. This could not happen overnight and would require long term planning and sequenced operational training. The terrorists had to determine the tactics and techniques needed to succeed in hijacking an aircraft within the United States. The vulnerabilities of the U.S. domestic commercial aviation security system were well advertised through numerous unclassified reports from agencies like the General Accounting Office and the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General. The news media had publicized those findings. The al Qaeda leadership recognized the need for more specific information. Its agents observed the system first-hand and conducted surveillance flights both internationally and within the United States. Over time, this information allowed them to revise and refine the operational plan. By the spring of 2001, the September 11 operation had combined intent with capabilities to present a real and present threat to the civil aviation system. As long as operational security was maintained, the plan had a high probability of success in conducting multiple, near simultaneous attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. Let us turn now to a more specific look at the security system in place on September 11 related to anti-hijacking. Intelligence The first layer of defense was intelligence. While the FAA was not a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, the agency maintained a civil aviation intelligence division that operated 24 hours per day. The intelligence watch was the collection point for a flow of threat related information from federal agencies, particularly the FBI, CIA, and State Department. FAA intelligence personnel were assigned as liaisons to work within these three agencies to facilitate the flow of aviation related information to the FAA and to promote inter-departmental cooperation. The FAA did not assign liaisons to either the National Security Agency or the Defense Intelligence Agency but maintained intelligence requirements with those agencies. Intelligence data received by the FAA went into preparing Intelligence Case Files. These files tracked and assessed the significance of aviation security incidents, threats and emerging issues. The FAA’s analysis of this data informed its security policies, Staff Statement No. 3 3 including issuance of FAA Information Circulars, Security Directives, and Emergency Amendments. Such Security Directives and Emergency Amendments are how the FAA ordered air carriers and/or airports to undertake certain extraordinary security measures that were needed immediately above the established baseline. While the staff has not completed its review and analysis as to what the FAA knew about the threat posed by al Qaeda to civil aviation, including the potential use of aircraft as weapons, we can say: First, no documentary evidence reviewed by the Commission or testimony we have received to this point has revealed that any level of the FAA possessed any credible and specific intelligence indicating that Usama Bin Ladin, al Qaeda, al Qaeda affiliates or any other group were actually plotting to hijack commercial planes in the United States and use them as weapons of mass destruction. Second, the threat posed by Usama Bin Ladin, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda affiliates, including their interest in civil aviation, was well known to key civil aviation security officials. The potential threat of Middle Eastern terrorist groups to civil aviation security was acknowledged in many different official FAA documents. The FAA possessed information claiming that associates with Usama Bin Ladin in the 1990s were interested in hijackings and the use of an aircraft as a weapon. Third, the potential for terrorist suicide hijacking in the United States was officially considered by the FAA’s Office of Civil Aviation Security dating back to at least March 1998. However in a presentation the agency made